【正文】 自然的精神統(tǒng)一，強(qiáng)調(diào)精神、自我和自助。 Selfreliance 摘要 ： 美國著名女作家露易莎s perspective of reading the novel. Transcendentalism promotes the unity of people, God, the spirit of natural, to emphasize the spirit of self and selfreliance. These ideas are reflected in the March sisters? growing up and character. March sisters have different personalities and talents, but they focus on their own spirit improvement and strongly maintain the selfreliance and selfindependent spirit. Transcendentalism gave the charisma to the March sisters and made the novel won the reader39。s favorite. In addition, Alcott extended Transcendentalism to women reality in Little Women, and it increases the readability of the novel. Keywords: Little Women。梅這 些思想都在馬奇姐妹的性格和成長過程中有所體現(xiàn)。 關(guān)鍵詞 ： 《 小婦人》；超驗(yàn)主義 ；個(gè)人主義；自助 內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 2 Thesis Statement: This paper discusses the importance of the Transcendentalism in Little Women and its influence on the minds of the four March daughters. Outline: Ⅰ .The Development of Transcendentalism A. The Connotation of Transcendentalism B. Some Important Comments on Transcendentalism Ⅱ .Transcendentalism in Little Women A. A Brief Look at the Plot of the Little Women B. The Reflection of Transcendentalism through the Characters in Little Women 1. Tomboyish Jo 2. Beautiful Meg 3. Fragile Beth 4. Romantic Amy 5. John Brooke 6. Laurence boy Ⅲ .The Influence of Transcendentalism in Little Women on the Future Literature Ⅳ .Conclusion 內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 3 A Transcendental Reading of Little Women Introduction Louisa May Alcott, the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail “Abba” May was born in Germantown, Pennsy1vania on November 29, 1832. Her famous work, Little Women is a novel written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—and is loosely based on the author39。s perspective of reading the novel. Little Women totally reflects the spirits of transcendentalism. The March sisters in this novel were the classic reflections of selfreliance, individualism and feminism. Ⅰ .The Development of Transcendentalism A. The Connotation of Transcendentalism Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. It is sometimes called American transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the 內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 4 doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among transcendentalists39。s intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher Pearse Cranch, John Sullivan Dwight, Convers Francis, Margaret Fuller, William Henry Furness, Frederick Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Peabody, Gee Ripley, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Jones Very. Others included Amos Bronson Alcott and . Waite. The publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson39。 some among the group linked it with utopian social change and, in the case of Brownson, it joined explicitly with early socialism, while others found it an exclusively individual and idealist project. Emerson believed the latter. In his 1842 lecture The Transcendentalist, Emerson suggested that the goal of a purely transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice. 內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 5 By the late 1840s, Emerson believed the movement was dying out, especially after the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850. All that can be said, Emerson wrote, is that she represents an interesting hour amp。 idealism as it appears in 1842.2 That description mentions two of the very elements, an emphasis upon heightened spiritual awareness and an interest in various types of philosophical idealism, that make transcendentalism so difficult to describe. In actuality, we cannot speak of a well anized and clearly delineated transcendentalist movement as such. Instead, we find a loosely knit group of authors, preachers, and lecturers bound together by a mutual loathing of Unitarian orthodoxy, a mutual desire to see American cultural and spiritual life freed from bondage to the past, and a mutual faith in the unbounded potential of American democratic life. Located in the Concord, Massachusetts, area in the years between 1835 and 1860, the transcendentalists formed not a tight group but, rather, a loose federation. Though a movement such as transcendentalism cannot be said to have had one distinct leader, Emerson was clearly its central figure. The publication of his Nature in 1836 is generally considered to mark the beginning of an identifiable movement. The next two decades were to see numerous new works from Emerson and poems, essays, and books from other transcendentalist figures, such as Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Bronson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Gee Ripley, and 內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文 7 Theodore Parker. Never forming an official affiliation, these figures and others associated with them banded together for the formation of an informal discussion group called the Transcendental Club。 disdain for convention and their exaltation of self reliant power, while both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King drew deeply upon the resources of Thoreau39。s Progress was a result of her upbringing, close to the heart of New England transcendentalism and to the values it espoused. In their oldfashioned New England home th